


In Another's Shoes (And Clothes. And Body.)

by HersheysCandyBar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Papcentric, Rated for swearing, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9496175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HersheysCandyBar/pseuds/HersheysCandyBar
Summary: Due to some cosmic mishap, Papyrus has switched places with his human counterpart from an alternate universe.





	1. Papyrus Meets the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first and probably only Fanfic; thanks for giving it a shot. :) I'll try my best to see this through to the end but it won't have a definite update schedule. Criticisms are welcome!

Papyrus awoke to a beam of sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window, directly into his eye sockets. For a moment he merely shielded his face from the painful brightness, grumbling in irritation. Then it clicked in his mind. Sunlight? In the underground?? The only place where the sun’s light made its way into the underground was Asgore’s throne room-turned-garden! Then what could be the source of the vexatious rays assaulting his sockets? Brimming with curiosity and foolish hope he leapt out of bed, flinging the covers aside without any of his usual care, and raced to the window to investigate. It took him a moment to get it open as he fumbled with the latch in his excitement, but soon enough he’d managed it and he leaned out over the top of his computer desk to get a good look at his surroundings.

In place of the snow he’d been expecting, there was a carpet of lush green grass of the sort he’d seen in pictures from the surface but never experienced in person. Where he thought there should be a forest of evergreen trees there were trees of a different type whose name he didn’t know, with real leaves rather than needles. Most importantly, when he looked upwards he did not see the ceiling of the cavern monsterkind had been confined to for generations. Instead, he saw an impossibly vast – he’d venture to say it was _infinite_ \- expanse of bright blue interspersed with mysteriously floating fluffy-looking white objects. In the midst of all the blue sat a gigantic glowing ball which seemed to be the source of all the light. He found that the orb hurt to look at. Was that… the sun? Wowie, he couldn’t believe he was finally meeting the sun!

He was on the surface. The surface! Looking at the sun and the sky and unfamiliar foliage! And when night fell he’d be able to see the stars, the _real_ stars and not-just-sparkly-rocks his kind had once wished upon, for the first time. He couldn’t wait to see the look on his brother’s face when he gazed upon the stars he’d read so much about and spoken of with such reverence. His brother! Sans! He needed to relay this most incredible news to Sans! Reluctantly, he withdrew from the window and slid it closed before exuberantly dashing out of his room and down the hall to his brother’s door. Unable to contain his enthusiasm, he threw open the door, which hit the wall and bounced off with a bang, and yelled at the top of his voice, “SANS! WAKE UP!”

“Ugh,” Sans groaned softly.

“SAAANS! WAKE!!! UP!!!” Papyrus repeated, but his brother just hid his face underneath his pillow. This was too important to let his brother sleep through! He impatiently switched on the room’s lights, although it was already fairly well illuminated, at last prompting Sans to crack open an eye and look at him. “BROTHER, YOU NEED TO GET UP! WE’RE ON THE-!”

Papyrus had finally gotten a good look at his sibling’s face and was abruptly stunned into silence, his jaw frozen in a half-open position. That was _not_ his brother. It couldn’t possibly be. He’d never encountered one before, but he was pretty sure the creature before him resembled a human. Just like the humans he’d seen in movies and picture books, the being was shaped very much like a skeleton, but padded with flesh, and it had a tuft of pale fur on its head. And it was laying in Sans’ bed right where his brother should be. His brother wasn’t a human. Was he? The human was around the same height as Sans and shared his stocky frame.

“SANS. WHY,” he gestured wildly to emphasize his utter confusion, “ARE YOU A HUMAN?”

“Little early for existential questions bro. Wait, Pap, what time is it?” not-Sans asked, voice gruff with sleep. The pair stared at one another, Sans expectantly and Papyrus dazed. The human waited patiently for his brother to say something for a few moments, but Papyrus didn’t answer him, so he fished his cellphone out of the pocket of his shorts to check the clock. He’d slept in the clothing he’d worn the previous day, too lazy to change into sleepwear. Perhaps he really _was_ Sans, ever the lazybones. “Shit,” he exclaimed suddenly, sitting up, “we should’ve been up an hour ago!”

“LANGUAGE,” Papyrus admonished him. He wasn’t sure what else to say; he’d somehow made it to the surface and his brother was somehow transformed into a human and he didn’t know how to feel about this turn of events. Sans snorted in response to his scolding.

“Since when do you care about my swearing?” he asked, pulling on his signature blue hoodie and reaching for a pair of sneakers which he neglected to tie. Apparently he didn’t feel that he had enough time to change into clean clothes, or else he just wanted to wear the wrinkled and dirty outfit he’d slept in. “C’mon, get ready. I’m gonna be late for work, and Undyne’s waiting on ya.”

“SHE IS?” Papyrus earned himself an incredulous look.

“Well, yeah. Today’s the big day, remember? You’ve only been begging her to train you for months.”

“OH,” was all Papyrus could say as he watched human-sans finish getting dressed and rush out of the room. He heard the creaking of his pseudo brother making his way down the stairs followed by the click of the bathroom door shutting. Now alone, Papyrus shakily raised his hands and looked at them. Admittedly, Papyrus didn’t see his hands too often since they were always hidden inside his gloves, but he was fairly certain that they were supposed to be skeletal. They weren’t. His stomach (He really had a stomach now, didn’t he?) churned. His tarsals were encased in a layer of squishy, peach-colored skin, each phalange capped with a hard fingernail. He stared at them in silence for a few moments, wiggling his fingers experimentally, before apprehensively following Sans downstairs.

He found human-Sans in the kitchen, looking only marginally less disheveled than before, a round piece of bread like a donut with no icing clenched between his teeth. He set another of the strange pieces of bread aside on a napkin, presumably for papyrus. When he spotted Papyrus in the doorway, he did a double take before removing the weird donut from his mouth to speak. “You meeting Undyne in your pajamas bro? Bold move,” the short human chuckled.

“OH, RIGHT.” Sans had told him to get ready, hadn’t he? Papyrus looked down at himself to find that he was indeed wearing orange pajamas with little red racecars on them. In any other situation he would have thought they were very cool, but his thoughts were a bit preoccupied in that moment. He said nothing further, turning around to head back upstairs and into his room. He opened his closet and was surprised when he didn’t find his battle body awaiting him within. Something uncomfortable settled in his chest. Was it really all that unexpected to not see the battle body at this point? He supposed it wasn’t after all of the other, much bigger surprises that morning. Still, he longed for the costume his brother had lovingly and carefully helped him to craft. Nothing had happened as anticipated so far that morning, and Papyrus craved the sense of normalcy and routine the outfit would have provided after wearing it day in and day out for several weeks. He dressed himself in blue jeans and a colorful shirt he found in the closet, wishing for the familiarity of his scarf. His neck felt bare.

Sans stood waiting by the front door when he got back downstairs, bouncing on his heels with an energy Papyrus hadn’t witnessed from him in years. In one hand he held the round bread and napkin he’d gotten out for Papyrus and in the other he clutched a key ring with several keys on it. Papyrus wondered what they were all for. He felt a strong urge to inquire more about the current state of affairs, but the human was in such a hurry that it was no question that his questions would be brushed off again. Sans handed him the bread along with a small plastic bottle of milk Papyrus hadn’t noticed was tucked under his arm. “Full of strong bones, right?” Sans asked with a languid smile, ushering his brother out the door, “Let’s go.” Overwhelmed, Papyrus numbly let human-Sans guide him along. He hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on.


	2. Papyrus is Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other Papyrus wakes up.

It was still fairly dark out when Papyrus awoke. His alarm had yet to ring. Good, that meant he could sleep in a bit more before waking Sans for work. He happily snuggled further into the covers, enjoying the warm bed. He lay there with his eyes closed, content, until he felt an itch on his arm. He attempted to scratch it, but instead of his own skin he was met with a hard surface, and it felt like he was wearing… gloves? To bed? Who even _does_ that? His eyes shot open, face contorted in confusion. He held his hands up to look at them, squinting to focus his vision. He couldn’t see well in the darkness, and he had on some kind of weird black bodysuit that was obscuring the shape of his limbs, but he was confident that his arms were much, much smaller and thinner than they should have been. He tentatively felt along his left arm. What should have been soft skin was instead firm like… like bone? His arm was _skeletal_. Like any reasonable person would, Papyrus let loose a very dignified scream.

Sans was in his room faster than should have been physically possible, frantically shouting. “papyrus! what’s wrong?” Papyrus heard his brother speak but couldn’t tear his eyes away from his own hands. With a timidness that was foreign to him, he pulled off one of the gloves. He really didn’t want to see, but he had to know the damage for certain. “bro, please answer me, are you okay?” Sans tried again, turning on the lights. Papyrus could see clearly now. Like a Halloween decoration, his hands were made up of pristine white bone and nothing else. A wave of cold terror rolled through him.

Papyrus finally managed to force himself to look up and promptly screamed a second time. That was _not_ Sans standing there but instead a living skeleton. Without pausing to think, Papyrus acted quickly, grabbing the nearest object, his pillow, and hurling it at the intruder. Somehow, despite his impeccable aim, the expertly-thrown projectile missed its target. The skeleton seemed unoffended by his attack. “papyrus!” it called out to him in a familiar baritone. Was his brother’s voice coming out of this corpse? Could it be…? The skeleton was dressed in an awfully Sans-esque manner in a white tank top and baggy running shorts.

“S-Sans?” he asked. Papyrus was not well-versed in reading the facial expressions of the undead, but he though the corpse before him looked concerned. Then again, its mouth was curved upwards into a smile. But maybe its mouth always looked like that?

“yeah, bro, i’m here. what’s going on?” Sans the Skeleton replied. Sans had turned into a creepy skeleton man. They’d _both_ turned into creepy skeletons. Oh God, was this the afterlife? Papyrus didn’t remember dying. Maybe their house burned down or something while they slept? Why else would he and his brother be skeletons? “pap?” If this was some kind of elaborate practical joke, then SkeleSans wasn’t in on the prank. He looked increasingly worried.

“Sans, what the fuck happened?!” Papyrus exclaimed, “Are we…? I mean, did – How???” He couldn’t seem to articulate what he wanted to ask. Sans’ eye sockets widened in what Papyrus guessed was surprise, the little lights that served as his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Then, his surprisingly malleable face slowly melted into an expression that could only be abject horror. The corners of his mouth tilted downwards a little as he shrank in on himself. Huh, so he _could_ stop smiling.

“stars, you,” the skeleton hesitated, taking a moment to gather his composure, “did… do you… remember?” Trembling, Sans looked away, unable to meet his brother’s gaze. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Oh, no – did Sans _remember_ their _deaths_? Judging by the absolutely broken expression on Sans’ face the brothers’ demises hadn’t been pretty. Papyrus was somewhat tempted to pry for information, to know what had happened, but Sans looked as if he’d shatter any minute now. Papyrus couldn’t stand to see that awful, hopeless look on his sibling’s face any longer –not even if this was an extremely creepy undead version of Sans. What could he say to mollify him?

“No, no I don’t. That’s… that’s why I asked? But you don’t have to tell me if it’s that upsetting,” he tried. Now Sans just looked bemused in addition to distressed. No one said anything and the atmosphere in the room grew oppressively tense. Maybe Papyrus had misread the situation?

“Sorry; I just had a nightmare,” he blurted in an effort to save face and smother the dead air that had arisen between them. He knew he was a shit liar; The Great Papyrus was amazing at many things, but lying wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t sure if Sans believed him. He hoped that he did.

“oh,” SkeleSans replied quietly, hugging himself. Papyrus had half a mind to cuddle and comfort his upset sibling, but the skeleton’s disturbingly …dead appearance held him back. He knew he would have offered his brother a hug in normal circumstances, and he felt guilty for withholding his affection based on how the other looked. This was going to take some serious getting used to.

 Sans’ horrified expression was briefly overcome with relief before shifting back to worry. “oh, um, you wanna talk about it?” he offered, taking a deep, calming breath. Did skeletons even need to breathe?

“ _No_ ,” Papyrus replied too quickly. He wasn’t sure he could convincingly talk about a nightmare he didn’t have. Hell, this _was_ a nightmare. How did he and Sans become undead freaks? Why wasn’t his brother freaking out about this? “No, that’s okay. Thanks, though.” Sans studied his face for a moment, saying nothing.

“alright,” he spoke at last, apparently having found whatever he was looking for in Papyrus’ expression, “well, it was about time for us to get up anyways, right? i’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast, okay?” Papyrus nodded his agreement silently. He looked away from his corpse brother for a moment, and when he tried to look back at him Sans was already gone. What the hell? He hadn’t even heard his brother leave.

Maybe he just hallucinated that entire strange encounter in his tiredness, and he and his brother were still perfectly normal human beings. He looked down at his hands again optimistically. They still weren’t the hands he remembered. He slipped his remaining glove off. Now that the light was on he could see that the garments were a vibrant red-orange. He decided he needed to see the rest of his appearance, too. He slowly got out of bed and made his way down to the bathroom underneath the staircase. It was strangely lacking a toilet, the space the fixture usually occupied empty. He presumed dead people didn’t need one.

Bracing himself, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked more like a traditional human skeleton than sans did. He had longer, less rounded skull, and his eye sockets lacked the little lights his brothers’ had. His face was gaunt, downright unsettling. He moved his gaze downwards and let out a startled laugh, immediately feeling a bit better. “Nyeh heh heh, what on Earth am I wearing?” he questioned himself. He wore an outlandish superhero costume complete with bulky pauldrons (were those basketballs under the fabric?) and tight royal blue hotpants. He had on a tattered scarf that matched the gloves he’d left lying on his bed, the fabric hanging down in the back like a cape. The outfit was uncomfortably revealing, though there wasn’t much to reveal, showing off his lower spine and hips. He headed back upstairs to change into something more socially acceptable.

He returned downstairs shortly wearing the most normal attire he’d been able to find: women’s lavender sweatpants coupled with a plain white t-shirt that had the words “Cool Dude” written on it with permanent marker in his own handwriting. The shirt was still too short on him, showing part of his spine. Seriously, was ludicrous clothing some kind of karmic afterlife punishment? He’d already been wearing the shirt, he discovered, underneath the ridiculous fake armor. Sans looked surprised when he walked into the kitchen.

“whoa, no battle body today?” his brother asked. Papyrus nearly burst into laughter again. Battle body, really? Is that what they were calling it?

“It was dirty,” Papyrus lied, feeling for some reason that telling Sans his thoughts on the silly outfit would be a bad move. Was Sans expecting him to wear that costume all day? He didn’t want to worry his brother any more than he already had, but he wasn’t about to go out of the house looking like that. Could he go out of the house looking the way he did now? Sans didn’t seem to find their skeletal appearances strange. Maybe nobody else would, either; maybe everyone here was a shambling corpse.

“guess we’ll have to wash it later,” Sans said, eye sockets narrowing as the corners of his mouth turned down again for a second before his rictus grin reappeared. “but for now, let’s eat. made that oatmeal you like.” Papyrus smiled back at his brother and moved to sit at the table with him. Wait, do the dead even need to eat? He had so much to learn about the afterlife!


End file.
